catching up

Chilean flamingos at the zoo

This weekend was like a crazy dream. Charlie took Friday off and we went to the zoo with friends.

A funny zoo story: Upon arrival I stated the animals that I had to see before leaving. I knew that the zoo had added a flamingo exhibit last spring and was super keen to see them. Charlie was nonchalant. We finally go to their area, and I was excitedly pointing out ridiculously obvious things like "they have such long legs!" Charlie was still playing it cool. Then he laughed and told me that he hadn't been able to figure out why I was so excited to see flamingos until he realized that they were a novelty to me. Since Charlie spent much of his childhood visiting his family in Florida, flamingos were common. It was like me saying "I can't wait to see the seagull exhibit!" They're still exotic to me, and I can't imagine seeing them outside your kitchen window.

We had many fires in the living room. Multiple board games were played. Friends arrived and Charlie cooked and we played more games. Then we cooked some more and more friends came and we played lots of Rock Band. Then yesterday, ahh, yesterday, we pretty much did nothing at all. Other than buy comic books and read them. There was leftover soup from the night before so we didn't even have to cook.

Harry approves of the fire

And appreciates it to the fullest extent

Today it's dreary and I am going to plan out garden beds. It's been killing me not having a vegetable garden at the house. Tomato plants on the deck this year yielded a whopping FOUR tomatoes. That's 1/3 tomato per plant. Weather was the cause...it was unbelievably cold this summer and tomatoes were an epic fail everywhere. But if I had had them in a proper bed I could have hoop-protected them for almost the entire summer.

So using some fiscal birthday help from parents and grandparents, I will be making a trip to the cedar lumberyard this week to get the goods to make a few raised beds. After looking at so many designs I've decided to go with 10x4' beds, with segmentable and add-on options. One will have hoop-posts so I can set it up for tomatoes. The others will have some raised covers to protect greens and other tasty treats from the myriad deer, rabbits, squirrels, doves, moles, and other vegetarians that roam our land. All of the beds need to be hardware-clothed on the bottom because boy howdy do we have mole issues.

Time for a cup of coffee and some graph paper.

another birthday present from mom&dad, displayed proudly on my bumper.

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Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 5
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Friday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Thursday: 3
Eggs laid in the coop Wednesday: 2
Eggs laid this year: 219